Stainless Izula?

Nobody said:
Not that my opinion is the end all be all, but I'm really not fond of 440C. Maybe I've never had a knife properly heat treated in 440C because the ones I have had in that steel were difficult to sharpen and didn't keep an edge for sh#t.
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Not arguing with you, just wondering---do you still have any of those knives? What kind of sharpeners do you have? The reason I ask is that 440C has a deeply ingrained reputation with many for being a difficult steel to sharpen, and I've found that it really stems from people who are trying to sharpen it with traditional stones. Truth be told, it's no harder to sharpen than 154CM, ATS-34, S30V or any of the other more "current" stainless steels, it's just that now there are many diamond and ceramic sharpeners available where, when 440C first hit the market decades ago, there weren't. Sharpening 440C in the 58+HRC range with an Arkansas stone is a pain in the ass. Doing the same with a DMT goes very, very fast. All of that chromium, vanadium, etc. that is in modern cutlery stainless steels just makes for a material too abrasion resistant to be convenient with the old method.

Heat treated properly and in the hardness ranges that ESEE runs their knives, 440C will hold its edge better in abrasive cutting (slicing) than 1095, where 1095 will hold up better to impact and torsional forces such as those encountered when scraping or batoning through wood.
 
EricV said:
From what I've heard in the spyderco forums H1 because of its work hardening property, and the difficulty in grinding the blades, has yet to be Full Flat Ground, on a production scale. H1 is a tough steel though, would be an interesting choice.

Personally I'm loving the 1095 and Rowen's spectacular heat treat.
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In the shot show nutnfancy video Sal said that H1 can only be hollow ground, or at least no one has managed it yet.

P.S. here's the link, It is an awesome video. Definitely worth watching all the way through.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSpRJX-ee2k&feature=channel
 
I agree with some of the people here. 1095 is a pretty awesome steel. If it's well oiled up it'll go through a lot of wet conditions. (My ka-bar sure has.)

If the Izula went stainless I would like it to be something super corrosion resistant, like H1.
 
I remember the thread asking what color people wanted to see the Izula come in next and me and 1 "maybe" 2 others said in stainless - so I got my 2nd Izula today and darn if you guys aren't coming out with what I wanted,

What am I going to do with 3 Izulas?

Any word on the folder yet? Like maybe something closer than "the end of 2010?"

Keep up the good work Randall Cutlery!
 
I'd love to see an H1 Izula myself. I've mentioned on the Spyderco forums how cool an H1 Swick would be. To me H1 is a no brainer for a neck knife, even if it needs to be saber ground. I love a full flat grind but H1 with a saber hollow grind and an edge reprofiled to 10 degrees per side works well enough for me.
 
it would be very nice to see a folder with the blade in 1095 steel , that s for sure
i guess the many options they choose, thats how many we'l end up buying
 
I'm just not a fan of D2. I find it to be too brittle and more of a pain to sharpen than it's worth. Not a fan of its corrosion resistance either (I can keep 1095 blades cleaner than D2).
 
D-2 D-2 is sometimes called a "semi-stainless". It has a fairly high chrome content (12%), but not high enough to classify it as stainless. It is more stain resistant than the carbon steels mentioned above, however. It has excellent edge holding, but may be a little less tough than some of the steels mentioned above. And it does not take a beautiful finish.
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I dislike D2. I have it on my BM710 and I find it ugly to look at and takes a "toothy" rough edge.

if a manufacturer had used the more expensive 440C, he'd want to advertise that. The general feeling is that 440A (and similar steels, see below) is just good enough for everyday use, especially with a good heat treat (we've heard good reports on SOG's 440A heat treat). 440-B is a very solid performer and 440-C is excellent.
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154-CM The hottest high-end stainless right now. 154-CM is the original American version, but for a long time was not manufactured to the high quality standards knifemakers expect, and so is not used often anymore. Late-breaking news is that high-quality 154-CM may again be available.
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I have 154-CM on one of my Griptilians and S30V on the other. The 154 CM model takes a much finer edge.....

440c over lets say 154cm
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Either sounds great to me!

Above quotes are from Knife Steel FAQ by Joe Talmadge: http://www.knifeart.com/steelfaqbyjo.html
 
t1mpani said:
Not arguing with you, just wondering---do you still have any of those knives? What kind of sharpeners do you have?
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Sorry it took so long to get back to the thread. No, I actually don't have any 440C blades anymore as I got rid of them all over time. Back when I had a few of them, I primarily used Arkansas stones which as you say didn't work well, and Japanese water stones, which work for anything I've ever sharpened. I didn't find that the 440C held an edge as well as the better 154CM steel that was available at one time, and later the CPM-154 which is very nice in my opinion. I've had mixed experiences with D2 ranging from great to OK (assuming HT has a lot to do with it as with most steels) The first S30V blade I bought from a maker right after it came out kept me away from that steel for next year and half. I've since had other S30V blades that are very nice. HT and grind in my experience has a lot to do with steel performance. None of my 440C knives in the past were real high dollar so that may reflect my why my experiences weren't so good.
 
cziv said:
I dislike D2. I have it on my BM710 and I find it ugly to look at and takes a "toothy" rough edge.nd S30V on the other. The 154 CM model takes a much finer edge.....
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D2 seems to vary widely by the heat treat. I only had a 710 on pass around but I was not pleased with the steel performance. My D2 Queens however grind quickly and take edges that let me carve individual hairs multiple times in the same area. My CPMD2 Military from Spyderco grinds slower than the Queen, but takes an even better edge and holds it much longer.

Seeing as the 1095 in the Izula performs very well for the steel I'm confident RAT / Rowen could bring out the good in D2 as well.
 
I mean, I'd be willing to try a Rowen heat treated D2 because I know how good he is. But D2 by anybody else (benchmade mostly) just hadn't impressed me.
 
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